New penguin chicks make debut at Aquarium of the Pacific

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One of the two 3-month-old Magellanic Penguin chicks gets some sun as he makes his debut at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach CA. Thursday, August 18, 2016. (Thomas R. Cordova/Southern California News Group)

A pair of plump penguin chicks, their black-and-white plumage not quite matching the tuxedo look of their adult counterparts, made their public debut Thursday at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

The birds — both males who have yet to be named — hatched in May. One chick is the offspring of birds known at the aquarium as Kate and Avery, both of whom arrived in Long Beach after they were rescued from the Brazilian coast in 2011. The other chick is the offspring of penguins known as Patsy and Robbie, with the latter also saved from the Brazilian shoreline.

The 20 penguins living at the aquarium’s June Keyes Penguin Habitat are Magellanic penguins, which rarely venture as far north as Brazil. Penguin keeper Sara Mandel said four of the aquarium’s penguins came from Brazil, and that’s a boon to keepers’ goal of breeding healthy chicks since those animals add to the genetic diversity of the confined penguin population.

“They’re kind of like our golden eggs, because their genetics haven’t been introduced in a protected environment before,” Mandel said.

Name that penguin

Aquarium officials are leaving the naming of Kate and Avery’s chick up to the outcome of a fundraising effort; donors who give at least $100 to the institution’s Adopt and Animal program get a chance to submit a possible name for the chick. The choice of a winning name is up to aquarium staffers, and whoever comes up with the winning name will also be invited to a feeding and training session.

There are some 1.3 million wild Magellanic penguin pairs in the wild, and the birds are considered to be members of a near-threatened species, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List. The group reports oil pollution poses a significant threat to the species.

The Penguin Sentinels project, which relies on the work of researchers from the University of Washington and Argentina, affirms that fishing and oil tankers releasing contaminated ballast water have harmed Magellanic penguin populations. But researchers also have noted some improvement since the late 1990s as a result of shipping lanes moving farther out to sea and a reduction in illegally dumped ballast water.

Andrew Edwards is part of the Southern California News Group's business team and focuses on housing stories for the Inland Empire. He's based at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and has also worked for publications including the Long Beach Press-Telegram and The San Bernardino Sun. He graduated from UCLA in 2003 after studying political science and history.